It's looking as if not even Corey Crawford is going to get this team where they need to be. Crow was excellent - maybe he'd like either of Monahan's goals back but it's hard to fault him on the others and, given the terrible coverage in front of him, 4 GA doesn't look that bad. Too often the D were backing in too far before even thinking about closing their gaps and the forwards weren't picking up their guys very often at all. Just a bad, bad effort in which the final score actually suggests that The Hawks were in this game. The Hawks were outshot nearly 3:1 fer goodness' sakes.
Only Three Hawks were north of 50% Corsi: Toews, Kruger and Fortin, and we have to take Fortin's stat, here, with a grain of salt 'cos he spent much of the game cruising the neutral zone looking for the stretch pass. Despite appalling possession stats I thought Schmaltz was good, trying stuff, at least, but Anisimov was downright awful and Kane kinda came & went, still not feeling his normal self, I suspect.
The Third Line accomplished nothing.
DeBrincat put us through a third consecutive game in which he was painful to watch. His pass to send Saad in to score was the first he'd made this week.
Seabrook was excellent. His Corsi line tells a different story but, with Keith "unavailable" he was out almost every second shift, always against The Flames top six.
And Then There's Maude. I know I said I'd just pass on slagging Manning but I can't let this crap pass without comment. He has no idea what he's doing. His positioning is dogshit and his decision making is terrible. I'd like to see what would happen if, given two opposing players to contend with, he chooses to check one of them, y'know, instead of pissing around between the two guys, accomplishing nothing. Edzo continues to talk about "the element" that Manning brings which is, presumably some snarl, but all we've seen in that vein is some slashing and the occasional cross-check to the back of a player who's just scored on us. He's had one meaningless fight in which he fought a middleweight to a draw and the only hits he's made have been on stationary players along the boards, so I don't wanna hear about "the time and space" he creates for his teammates. Yeah, Hard Pass on this idiot.
I Didn't Mind Martinsen and, if Q doesn't get any ideas about expanding Marty's role I'm quite fine with him doing what he does for the amount of time he's being allotted to do it. He hasn't hurt the team in his last couple of games and his puck retrieval has been impressive.
Anyway, this wretched road trip is mercifully done and, now The Hawks have a few days in which to focus on either continuing to do all that stuff that failed to work over the last six or so games OR they can start making some passes and not allowing their opponents' third forwards unlimited access to primo shooting zones. Y'know, good hockey...
Illyus & Barrientos - Just Bad Shit
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